I know I’ve mentioned this, but I’m going to restate it for the purpose of the discussion: I don’t have a great deal of “free” time. Between two little ones, a busy job, projects around the house, etc, my game time these days is a carefully measured, delicate and precious commodity.

Sure, sometimes I miss the way it used to be, and I know in a few years things will loosen up a bit. Its not all bad; on the bright side, I find that the decrease in available time actually forces me to be a little pickier in how that time gets spent, and it makes me appreciate the games I do play even more.

I’m always impressed when I read about people who just sank their 15,000th hour into the Skyrim save that they’ve been playing for the last decade straight or whatever, that’s not me. I can’t do that, I’ve got to play as many games as I can (which is, clearly, at odds with my free time situation). Yet when I sit down to play a game like God of War, I still lie to myself. “I’m going to 100% this magnificent specimen,” I’ll think. “This game is special. This time I mean it.”

But there’s always an artifical expiration date on it, which is the release date of my next must-play. In this specific case, May 22nd, State of Decay 2. It’s not that I’m going to stop liking God of War on that date. But I also can’t not play State of Decay, and due to my aforementioned time issue, both games cannot coexist. It’s simple math.

Therefore I always end up on this gradual, curved trajectory from an overconfident “I will conquer all this game has to offer!” to a frantic “I need to complete the bare minimum required to roll credits before this becomes another brick in my Momument To Games I Never Finished.”